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LEIPZIG DIARY - ALFRED HILL

edited by Donald Maurice

Introduction

The publication of this diary introduces a new perspective on several aspects of musical and social history. We learn through the eyes and ears of a budding young colonial composer about musical life in Leipzig in a Golden Age of musical history when the city was host to a steady stream of names who are now enshrined as the greatest of the greats from the Romantic era. We are treated to first-hand accounts of Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Dvorák, Bruch, Reinecke, Sarasate, Joachim, Strauss and Sitt, to mention but a few. These accounts reveal much about the personalities of these luminaries and are especially interesting as perceived by a highly impressionable young man from the Antipodes, a previously somewhat self-made musician who was absorbing a culture vastly different from that in which he had grown up.

Indeed, Hill’s diary entries during the eight-week ship voyage from Wellington to the Tilbury Docks in London, portray a seventeen-year old full of innocence of the world, fascinated by even the trivial details of the ship’s daily life and colourfully descriptive of the various cultural encounters he witnessed as their ship crossed the Indian Ocean and navigated the Suez Canal. First impressions of the East End of London are distinctly Dickensian. On arrival in Leipzig, young Alfred is clearly fascinated by the role of women, dogs, eating habits and drinking habits. His vivid account of the death and funeral of the Emperor William in March, 1888 is most memorable, as told from his vantage point as one of the estimated three million spectators in Berlin.

However, all these aspects of his reporting of events, and commentaries on personalities, form just a part of the picture we build up of Alfred Hill, a composer and performer in the making, who would in the decades to come achieve greatness in his future career in Australia and New Zealand. His deeply religious conviction is evident at all times and, while he is constantly sharing with us his prayers and determination to serve God, he is also remarkably tolerant of those around him who have lesser ideals. Especially revealing towards the end of the diary is his over-whelming respect for Wagner, who almost receives the status of demi-God.

In the final entry in his diary in 1891 he notes:

After listening – aye & studying Wagner for over four years I felt that I was just beginning to appreciate his work and to see the greatness of the man’s mind. Oh ye fools who dare to criticize sneeringly such a man. Ye are like those who sit in darkness because they won’t believe in anything their miserable little minds cannot understand. Oh if you would but bow your heads and learn of the man what God has given him to teach, you would soon open your mouths and gape in wonder and delight. And how much you miss, ye willingly ignorant people. You who prefer any kind of vile, sensuous music so long as it tickles your ears and is dressed up in a pleasing and gaudy style. The music you like is of the Yellow back kind, altogether extravagant, unreal, sensuous & immoral - O’ Why not stir yourselves and rise to something higher. It is well worth the trouble to try and appreciate good music; and when once your ears got accustomed to it you would soon begin to understand and appreciate it. You would also see that you had been feeding among the swine on the husks while all the time good wholesome food was to be had for the asking.

Who shall try and damn the Creations of Wagner because his life was not that of a Saint. God only knows what temptations he had to bear and who shall judge him. He has given us his “best” in his “works” not his worst. He has told us again like another Charles Kingsley that “love” is the greatest thing in the world that Earthly and Individual love teach us heavenly or spiritual love viz love for God and all mankind.

Hill’s return to New Zealand in 1891, full of the hype and zest of Leipzig, must have been an enormous cultural shock for him, yet he made the choice to stay and become a pioneer colonial musician, and share all he was able to from his four and a half years in the epicentre of European musical life. In this context it is not difficult to see why, after twenty years of trying to musically move New Zealand into the twentieth century and failing to achieve his dreams of a national conservatorium and symphony orchestra, he moved permanently to Sydney in 1910, where he was to play a major role in establishing what is now known as the Sydney Conservatorium. His legacy there, as the first professor of composition, gave Australia identifiable roots to a national musical identity.

His legacy in New Zealand, and a permanent place as the “national composer”, would have been cemented had he succeeded in establishing a national conservatorium in the early twentieth century. However, that was not to be, and his departure, followed by the events of 1914-18, and later 1937-44, which initiated and then confirmed that a national identity based on the great musical heritage of Germany was “undesirable”, effectively wrote Alfred Hill out of the script as the founding figure of a national identity in New Zealand’s music history.

It is hoped that the publication of this diary, alongside the recent emergence of new publications of his music by Stiles Music Publications, the ongoing releases of recordings of his major works by Naxos, and the very positive reviews that have been accompanying them, will help to restore his rightful place in the history of not only Australia and New Zealand, but also within the international canon of the Romantic Era, of which his music forms a significant part.

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Brief Biography

Alfred Hill (1869-1960)

While he was born in Melbourne and died in Sydney, Alfred Hill lived in Auckland from the age of two and in Wellington from five until seventeen after which he began studies at the Royal Conservatorium of Music in Leipzig. After completion in 1891 of his studies in composition, violin and piano, he lived principally in Wellington until 1910 with some shorter spells in Australia. From 1910 he resumed residency in Sydney which remained his home for the rest of his long life. He is truly a national treasure of both Australia and New Zealand and the only significant composer of these two countries who represents the late romantic era. While the influences of his immediate predecessors such as Brahms, Dvorak, Tchaikowsky, Wagner and Strauss are clearly obvious in his early works, his style evolved to a limited degree with some absorption of later styles, though with a deliberate rejection of a break from the long established traditions of Europe.

John Thomson in A Distant Music did a great service by seeking out primary sources and providing us with an excellent survey of Hill’s life and music. However, dependence on the written word alone does not bring music to life and the only major works to have been commercially recorded were, until 2007, all made in Australia. This fact, combined with a dearth of available published scores, has resulted in an almost complete lack of performances in New Zealand and only limited performances in Australia, and has denied modern audiences the opportunity to experience a genre of music that is as rich as it is vast. Hill’s prolific output included ten operas (some on Maori themes), thirteen symphonies, seventeen string quartets, major choral works, concertos, chamber music, sonatas and hundreds of songs and short works for a variety of instruments. Researcher and publisher, Allan Stiles, has noted that there are over 2,000 titles attributable to Alfred Hill and of those, many have never been published and few commercially recorded. While his much-loved song Waiata Poi and his cantata Hinemoa have received occasional airings in New Zealand, they are essentially early works and do not convey the diversity of a lifetime of composing that spans eight decades.

Hill was a first-rate violinist, violist, cornettist and conductor, though composition was clearly his first calling. His use of Maori music and references to Maori culture were enduring and he later developed an interest in the music of the Australian aborigines. Correspondence between Alfred Hill and Maggie Papakura demonstrates a deep commitment to the Maori and it was mooted in 1910 that Hill would settle in Rotorua and further develop his research into Maori music.

Even after twenty-five years living in Australia, Hill still held a vision for a New Zealand Conservatorium of Music and wrote to Prime Minister Joseph Savage on June 17, 1936, suggesting this was the time to establish such a school. His vision included the establishment of a national examination board to replace the British grade examinations from which he pointed out “Untold wealth has left New Zealand in the past, and has gone into the pockets of English Examination Boards”. Another of his aims was to incorporate Maori music into the curriculum of the national school. “Anything that I could do to advise and help in the matter, would be willingly done, in the interest of the country I love, and have always placed, from a Maori point of view, before the outside countries.” He is remembered affectionately by Maori as Arapeta Hira.

While the music of Alfred Hill has suffered from neglect over recent decades, broadcasts, recent recordings and public reception indicate a renewed interest in this rich romantic music and it will be wonderful to see its return over the coming years to the regular concert repertoire of orchestras, bands, choirs, soloists and chamber ensembles.

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